Martin Gordon: 'I am more than my disability, I am far more fun'
Murphy/sportsfile In His Photo At Friend: Dog, Sport Hq Man's Best Martin Gordon Harry Irish By Blanchardstown With Pictured
Martin Gordon doesn’t go back there anymore. Doesn’t see the point. It’s his business, not mine or yours. It’s his trauma, nobody else lived it.
For years, Martin acceded to each and every question about the darkest chapter of his existence, be they from a journalist or a random taxi man. He kept going back there. Kept retelling and reliving his trauma. Until one day, he thought, no. No more.
The events of 2002 can never be wiped from his memory, but his decision to stop sharing them with every Tom, Dick, and Harry who inquires, be they curious or otherwise, means they sit untouched way below the surface. No dragging them back up anymore. Not for no one. He doesn’t care how nice you ask or how well-meaning you are.
At 39, track cyclist Martin Gordon is the third oldest Irish Para athlete in Paris. It was 22 years ago when he went to bed one night a happy and healthy 17-year-old and woke up the following morning blind. His sudden loss of sight was an unexpected complication relating to glaucoma.
Of course, he lost a great deal more than his sight. His independence was for a period removed. No more rugby with mates. No more lots of things.
To have known and lived this world of colour for 17 years made it all the more incredibly difficult when the light, all of a sudden, went out.
“I don’t talk about it anymore because it is the most traumatic day of my life and of my parents. And it brings back a lot of demons,” he begins.
“Someone once said to me, you don't need to talk about that, that is for you. And I found that a very powerful thing.
“People often ask, how did it happen? People love the bit of drama. The bottom line is, they are going, ‘thank fuck that's not me’.
“I made peace with it a long, long time ago. It is done, it is dusted. More recent than that, I made the realisation that I don't need to talk about it. I can talk about the disability, I can talk about sight loss. But the intimate details of the most traumatic day of my family's life, no, that's for us.
“Those intimate details, it is hard for my parents to read them all the time because they are parents and they're protective. As you get older, you realise how intimate the details of that time are.”
Gordon is not defined by what happened to him 22 years ago. He is what he chose to become. The disability that he acquired is not his personality nor his life choices.
After finishing at Sligo Grammar, the Hazelwood native studied Law at NUIG. From there to Kings Inns. And up until he recently went all in on his preparation for Paris, he worked as a barrister for An Garda Síochána.
“The biggest decisions in my life were not in consideration of my disability. Getting a guide dog was defined by my disability. Using a cane was defined by my disability. But studying law, my disability wasn't the key in that. The partner I ended up with, Louise, and the child that I have, Nora, these bigger things, it is not the disability.
“Yeah, it is part of who you are, but so is the colour of your hair. I am more than my disability. It is always going to be there and it is going to be a factor, but there is me and there is the disability, and I am far more fun.”
Sport was always in his life. So too was cycling. But he never put the latter in the former bracket.
Growing up, cycling was a mode of transport to and from school. Once school was done, he’d tear around on the dirt tracks running through the forest beside the family home. Cycling was recreation, leisure.
The first time he swung a leg over a tandem bike was circa 2006, ‘07. He can’t remember the exact year. There was a charity cycle from Mizen to Malin Head to raise money for Irish Guide Dogs for the Blind. His dad, Ronald, was the local Guide Dogs branch chair. Father and son skipped over to the Sligo Park Hotel to meet the cyclists. The next day, Martin found himself on the back of a tandem piloted by a man from Cork.
“I went 20 or 30 miles up the road with them. No more than that as I had to go to work,” he recalls.
“I look back on that first time I got on a tandem and say, thank God for that day. That set a whole domino effect and a whole course that has led to a second Paralympic Games.”
At his first Games three years ago, he was fifth in the time trial. Eamonn Byrne, his pilot in Tokyo, retired after those Games. Eoin Mullen has sat in the front saddle since. They are, says Gordon, a “highly regarded” bike.
The pair are in 4,000m individual pursuit action today, with their main event - the 1km time trial - arriving on Sunday. Among those watching on from inside the Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines velodrome will be his dad, Ronald, and mam, Margaret.
“It is a poignant thing for my parents. I know they are incredibly proud of my achievements, in everything I have tried to do in life. They find it incredible to think, we are going to a Games, you've gone and done this.
“They were there with me in 2002. They know more than anybody the mountain we faced as a family 22 years ago. We have come up the mountain and we have gone down the far side of it together. The family has grown along the way with my partner and my daughter. It is going to be special.” A once traumatic past has been left behind. The hope is that a triumphant podium is in his very near future.